Less expensive GPU?

jeff1959

Member
I am looking to upgrade my current GPU, but can't afford a card that is more than my rent. What options on affordable, yet budget friendly, GPUs are there?

Current Specs:
i5-2500 3.30 GHz 4 core
16 GB RAM
NVIDIA GeFOrce GTX 660 GPU 2GB Memory
1929x1080 24 in monitor

I know that biggest drawback for Trainz22 is the graphics card. I can run on medium settings just fine. But would like higher settings. Suggestions are welcome.
 
Your current card has a benchmark of 4.000 https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php

I'd suggest an RTX 3060 which has a score of 17,000 cost $430 on Newegg.com. Having said that a score of 10,000 is reasonable so start to look at how much you can afford and what the price is. You can sort the column on video card value by the way.

Be aware that some things work better on nVidia in Trainz.

Cheerio John
 
If you can find one, a GTX 1660 Super is a fantastic card and should be sub $300 now that prices have dropped.
 
I wouldn't as it may well get bottlenecked by an i5 that old, I'm guessing that PC will have DDR3 and not DDR4 as well.

For cheapest option that will work I would suggest a GTX 1660 $299 for a Zotac or slightly more at $309 a Asus GTX 1660 Super. According to Userbenchmark a GTX1660 is 225% faster than a GTX660

Avoid any of the GTXxx50 or RTX xx50 cards they are entry level and no use for Trainz and may well be worse than what you have, newer is not necessarily better with GPUs.


A GTX1060 which is under the 10000 mark runs TRS19 and 22 and is 8% slower than a 1660 as does a GTX970 which is 37% slower than a 1660 so any of the 1660s above would be quite capable as well as not that expensive.
 
From what I read, avoid the Super series cards as well. The name is deceiving and they're not that super as the name implies. They may share the same GPU but come up short on RAM and other important parts that cost the most in order to lower the cost.
 
Avoid any of the GTXxx50 or RTX xx50 cards they are entry level and no use for Trainz and may well be worse than what you have, newer is not necessarily better with GPUs..
What about the 3050 desktop? It outperforms the 1060 and matches the 1660 and is $40 cheaper at just $250. The 4050 and 4050ti are coming out soon at the same price and will be even more powerful, and (from our current information about it) appears to outperform the 3060ti.
 
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From what I read, avoid the Super series cards as well. The name is deceiving and they're not that super as the name implies. They may share the same GPU but come up short on RAM and other important parts that cost the most in order to lower the cost.

The "Super" tag just denotes that they are factory overclocked. I've seen some very good reviews of them. With a benchmark of 12700 that is pretty good performance for a card with a MSRP of $239. I would get one now but my video editor has new features that require an RTX card.
 
My GTX 1660t1 with 6gb on my Acer nitro laptop works very well. It seems to have plenty of oomph to run 2019 nicely.
 
My GTX 1660t1 with 6gb on my Acer nitro laptop works very well. It seems to have plenty of oomph to run 2019 nicely.

Laptop GPUs are quite different.

I understand that it is now cheaper to mine on ASIC than GPUs so expect prices to continue to fall. Check your power supply as well will it provide enough juice for an upgraded GPU.

Cheerio John
 
The "Super" tag just denotes that they are factory overclocked. I've seen some very good reviews of them. With a benchmark of 12700 that is pretty good performance for a card with a MSRP of $239. I would get one now but my video editor has new features that require an RTX card.

The Super was introduced by Nvidia, it's not an overclock as such "The GTX 1660 SUPER also features a new memory configuration. The maximum theoretical bandwidth has increased to 336 GB/s, which is even more than GTX 1660 Ti (288 GB/s). This is possible thanks to GDDR6 memory rated at 14 Gbps (the Ti model is clocked at 12 Gbps)." 1660 has 6GB of GDDR 5 the Super has 6GB of GDDR6 the cards with less memory are from dubious card manufacturers, it's always happened like the 3GB 1060s when officially there are only 4 or 6GB versions.

specs here https://www.nvidia.com/en-gb/geforce/graphics-cards/gtx-1660-super/

New memory configuration and using better memory doesn't equal factory overclock in my book, it does equal a different card. ;)
 


For the OP current situation, one of the many overclocked 1660 Super cards made by respected manufacturers is the best option.
 
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For the OP current situation, one of the many overclocked 1660 Super cards made by respected manufacturers is the best option.

It's certainly up in the price performance side of things but I might hang on a day or two and see if the prices drift down. It depends on the budget $300 cf $430 for a 3060 and if it will fit and the power supply.

Cheerio John
 
From what I read, avoid the Super series cards as well. The name is deceiving and they're not that super as the name implies. They may share the same GPU but come up short on RAM and other important parts that cost the most in order to lower the cost.

Oh! I've got an RTX 2080 Super with 8GB of GDDR6 memory. It seems OK to me!

Paul
 
From what I read, avoid the Super series cards as well. The name is deceiving and they're not that super as the name implies. They may share the same GPU but come up short on RAM and other important parts that cost the most in order to lower the cost.

Get cards from reputable manufactures and they don't short change you on memory, some manufactures are always doing it 3GB 1060 when the lowest spec was 4GB for example quite a few of them around, GDDR instead of 4 was another favourite cheapskate trick.
I would say you would be better with a 1660s with it's 75% increase in memory bandwidth over a 1660 and GDDR6 instead of 5.
https://www.techradar.com/uk/reviews/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1660-super
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1660-super-review/
https://www.techspot.com/review/1935-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1660-super/

Don't see anything in those that say don't buy stick too the slower version......
 
this rig is as per my signature, i use it mainly for MSFS, RDR and some other Steam games, my previous rig was a dell i7-4750 12gb ddr3 Nvidia GT750, more than enough for trainz prior to new era, but from there on it struggled, so i upgraded to GT1650 which fixed the choppy frame rates.
 
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